I have been editing in the small gaps of time that these crazed two weeks have given me. Editing - it is my life. This is partly due to the fact that my spelling (and grammar) are rather crap.
Oh, you noticed? I suppose it is one of the more commonly known factoids about me.
Less well known, but only just, is that I can't frost a cake. I can bake a cake. I can make frosting. But never the two shall meet in happiness when I am in charge.
Poor speller. Terrible cake decorator.
The funny thing is that due to this disastrous combination (no spell check on cake!) is that I have never considered the possibility of becoming a professional baker. It appears others in this world have no such qualms. Have you seen the blog Cake Wrecks? If you are in dire need of laughs like I was yesterday, then this is the site for you.
I have also gone on a bit of a book buying binge. I had this laughable idea that this year with my children in Grades RR & 2, we were going to have a nice smooth year. That I would be in a reading frenzy by now (and writing one, too).
I have rather poor instincts on anticipating potential trouble, it would seem. Let history show that I also thought 2011 would be a relatively quiet year. Yes, I'm still chuckling about that, too.
But I do like books, and as soon as I can get the dog to quit standing under my bedroom window at 1:30am and bark till the sky comes tumbling down, I shall be reading at a much faster pace. I have bought used books, ebooks and new physically present books. I have bought books that are fun romances and mysteries, travel fiction stories, artistic literature and South African reads.
While undergoing this buying spree a number of opinions on books have emerged. The one titled The self e-publishing bubble, was both depressing from a writer's and a reader's perspective. I believe this article is a good read. I am still not completely certain I agree with it 100%. But it is interesting (and scary!).
Then the lovely Yarn Harlot popped up on my blog feed: Randomly on Thursday. She discusses a book she read where the layout, spacing, changes of type face are all part of the art of telling the story. Apparently she knows a number of people who read the book via audio. She poises the question if reading it via audio is 'even remotely the same experience'. You can't hear a change in font, or three pages of blank space.
Her thoughts made me wonder if this is also the case with ebooks. On the kindle you can change the size of the font (can be very handy for many, especially those with eye problems). The number of fonts are limited on the kindle (or at least the version I have). Page breaks are not the same as they would be in a paper book. I have also noticed that paragraphs and line breaks are not formatted properly, causing a very odd flow of words across the screen. Not such a big deal when I am reading a cheap toss away romance. Bothers me greatly when reading Michael Cunningham.
Thoughts?
Jonathan Franzen has plenty of them in the article: Jonathan Franzen: e-books are damaging society. As a person who named her dog Orwell, I have sympathy for his point of view. But I honestly think ebooks are here to stay. My hope is that there will be room for both paper and digital, because if we go totally digital then Franzen's fears will become mine. It will be very Orwellian, indeed.
It won't really be that bad, will it? Perhaps I am being naive.
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